Ice Lolly

by Jean Ure

  “Like someone’s spilt a can of orange paint over him.”

  “Or marmalade,” I say.

  “Yeah. Maybe he’s a marmalade cat!”

  Michael’s busy, now, packing books. I’m handing them to him, one by one, and he’s putting them in the boxes. He’s not just stuffing them in all anyhow, like Holly would have done. He’s stacking them neatly, in piles. Big ones at the bottom, small ones on top.

  “This is a lot of books,” he says. “I guess Auntie Sue was really into reading.”

  I tell him that Mum loved her books more than anything. “She always said books are what she’d rescue if the house ever caught fire. After Mr Pooter, of course. But once he was safe, she’d go back for her books.”

  I can see that Michael thinks it’s strange, anyone rescuing books, but he’s too polite to say so. He’s like Uncle Mark, he’s really trying to be kind. He picks up a box and carries it to the door. It’s obviously heavier than he’d thought.

  “Don’t reckon she’d have managed to rescue very many,” he says.

  Regretfully I say that I haven’t, either. “There’s not room.”

  “Maybe Dad could put up another shelf, only—” He stops. I know why he’s stopped. It’s because Auntie Ellen didn’t want a shelf put up in the first place. This is where Holly’s nan sleeps, and it’s a tiny little room like a cupboard. It’s why I wasn’t allowed to bring Mum’s bookcase. “Far too big,” said Auntie Ellen. “Wouldn’t fit in.” It would if the wardrobe was taken out. I wouldn’t care about not having a wardrobe. But Holly’s nan probably expects it.

  In this cheering-up kind of voice Michael says, “It’s not like they’re being got rid of. They’re only up in the loft.” He adds that he can always go up there and get a book down for me if there’s one I specially want.

  He is trying so hard. He really wants me to be happy. It ought to make things easier. Why does it make them worse?

  “There’s no problem,” says Michael. “I’m up and down there all the time. Just let me know. OK?”

  I seal up the chinks in my ice house wall.

  “I will,” says Ice Lolly, in her icicle tones. “Thank you.”

  Michael gives me this strange look. “By the way,” he says, “next week—” Next week is when I’m starting back at school. The same school Michael goes to. “I just heard, you’re going to be in my class.”

  I can’t think what to say to this. I wonder if Michael wants me in his class, or whether I’ll be an embarrassment. The girl who laughed at the Queen. Really weird.

  Ice Lolly takes over. “That will be nice,” she says.

  Michael says, “Yeah…”

  I feel almost sorry for him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Today is Uncle Mark’s birthday and we’ve all come into town, to the PizzaExpress. Where me and Mum lived, you could just walk up the road. Here, you have to drive. Auntie Ellen says it’s healthier, being in the country, but it’s not really country. Just lots of roads with fields on either side, only not the sort of fields you can walk in. Mostly they are full of cows and sheep and growing stuff. Corn, or something. I don’t know much about it. Auntie Ellen says it’s the ignorance of the town child. Uncle Mark says that I will get used to it. He says, “We’ll always take you wherever you want to go.” But I don’t want to be taken! I want to go by myself. It’s very worrying that I can’t just walk to the library. What am I going to do about books? Maybe this new school will have some.

  We’ve been shown to a table. I am sitting between Holly and Michael. Holly is studying the menu.

  “Dad,” she says, in wheedling tones, “can I have a starter and a main course and a pudding? Cos it’s your birthday, Dad! And it’s the big one, isn’t it?” She cosies up to Uncle Mark. “It’s the big one, Dad, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is,” says Uncle Mark.

  “Forty,” says Holly. And then she goes, “Is that older or younger than Auntie Sue?”

  Auntie Ellen says “Holly!” and frowns at her, but she can’t ever take a hint. She has to keep on. “It’s older, isn’t it, Dad? Auntie Sue was your little sister.” She turns to me. “Don’t you ever wish you had a sister?”

  Michael gives her a thump. “Better off without, if you ask me,” he says.

  Holly screws up her face and sticks out her tongue. “Not if it means you’re an only child. Only children get spoilt.”

  Did Mum spoil me? Auntie Ellen always says it was “unnatural”, the way I was brought up, but it didn’t feel unnatural to me. And I don’t think I was spoilt. I know Mum never yelled at me or told me off, but that was because we used to talk about things. Like if I did anything she didn’t like she’d make me sit down so we could discuss it. I don’t call that being spoilt. Holly’s more spoilt than I was. She only has to say she wants something and Auntie Ellen immediately buys it for her. She has twenty pairs of shoes in her wardrobe. She showed them to me. I only have two, and one of those is trainers.

  Uncle Mark has decided he is going to order a bottle of wine, seeing as it’s his birthday. Before I can stop myself I cry, “Jackson Frères!”

  Everyone looks at me, including the waiter. They seem puzzled. They have obviously never read Diary of a Nobody. I say, “Jackson Frères…a bottle of Jackson Frères!”

  Uncle Mark shakes his head, like don’t ask me. “We’ll just have the house white,” he says.

  “What’s with all this Jackson Frères?” says Michael.

  Suddenly, I don’t want to talk about it. I wish I hadn’t said it. It was our private joke, between me and Mum.

  “Frère’s French,” says Holly. “Like Frère Jacques.” She opens her mouth to start singing, but Uncle Michael cuts across her.

  “What do you kids want? Coke?”

  If Mum ever had wine, then I was always allowed a glass, too. But I know if I say so Auntie Ellen will only suck in her breath and that will be another black mark against Mum.

  “Three Cokes,” says Uncle Mark. Then he smiles at me and says, “So, Laurel! All set up for tomorrow?”

  Tomorrow is the day I’m starting at this new school. Bennington High. It has a black uniform. Auntie Ellen has dyed my old green skirt, but she had to take me into Asda to buy a black blazer and a black sweater. The only nice thing is the badge, which is red.

  “Feeling OK about it?” says Uncle Mark.

  I don’t say anything; I just nod.

  “She’ll be all right,” says Auntie Ellen. “She has Michael to look out for her. and it’s a good school! Far better than where she was before.”

  What does Auntie Ellen know about where I was before?

  “It’s smaller, for a start,” she says, “and not so mixed.”

  “Is mixed bad?” I say.

  “It is if you’re in the minority. Some of these inner city schools…hardly hear a word of English one day to the next, all the babble going on.”

  Earnestly I assure her that it only sounds like babble just at first. “You get used to it. You start learning other people’s languages. Like I can say hello in French and Polish—” I check them off on my fingers, “and Greek and Turkish and Gujarati and Russian and—”

  “Yes, and you probably weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas,” snaps Auntie Ellen.

  “We did! We celebrated everything. Christmas, and Diwali, and Hanukkah, and—”

  “Well, you won’t have any of that here,” says Auntie Ellen.

  I stare at her, doubtfully. She makes it sound like a good thing. I don’t think it’s a good thing! “Are you a racist?” I say. I think she might be, but unless I ask I won’t know.

  Auntie Ellen grows red. I have made her angry. “What kind of a question is that?” she says.

  Uncle Mark is also angry. “Laurel, that was quite uncalled for,” he says. “Apologise to your aunt this instant!”

  I’m confused. I wasn’t being rude; I was just interested. I thought it was something we could discuss. But I say that I’m sorry, as it’s probably what
Mum would want me to do. Auntie Ellen, tight-lipped, pours herself a glass of water.

  “This is the problem,” she says, “when people are brought up without any kind of belief system.”

  “She doesn’t believe in God,” shrills Holly. “She told me so! She says he’s just made up, like Father Christmas.”

  A little boy at the next table springs round with his mouth open. auntie Ellen tells Holly to be quiet.

  “She hasn’t got a Bible,” says Holly. “All those books and she hasn’t even got a Bible!”

  I say that we did have one, once. “I can’t remember what happened to it. But Mum used to read me bits.” I want them to know that Mum did do some things they would approve of. “She said they were good stories and the language was beautiful.”

  “Stories?” shrieks Holly. She shoots a glance at Auntie Ellen. “She thinks they’re just stories!”

  “Holly, hush,” says Auntie Ellen. “It’s not Laurel’s fault. It’s the way she was brought up.”

  I busy myself with the menu, trying to decide what to eat. I’m not really hungry. I wish I wasn’t here! I wish they’d left me at home with Mr Pooter. It seems whatever Mum did was wrong. Like whatever I do, like asking Auntie Ellen if she was a racist. We are always in disgrace.

  We get back home at eight o’clock. Michael goes off to play one of his video games, while Uncle Mark and Auntie Ellen and Holly sit down to watch television. Uncle Mark asks me if I’m going to join them, but I say no, I’m going to go upstairs and pack my bag ready for tomorrow.

  “Good idea,” says Auntie Ellen. “Make sure you’ve got everything.”

  I come upstairs, but I don’t pack my bag. There’s nothing to pack. I already have my pencil case and stuff from before, and what else is there? Nothing, until I get given some books.

  Mr Pooter chirrups and rolls over for me to tickle his tummy. I see that he’s been a bit sick on the duvet and I clean it up, quickly, and turn the duvet over so that the wet bit is inside. I don’t want Auntie Ellen catching sight of it. Cat people, like me and Mum and Stevie, know that these things happen; but Auntie Ellen is not a cat person. She would say it is disgusting and unhygienic and that cats should not be in bedrooms.

  I snuggle down next to Mr Pooter and pick up Diary of a Nobody. I think that I will continue to read it, starting from where me and Mum left off.

  A beautiful day. Looking forward to tomorrow. Carrie bought a parasol about five feet long. I told her it was ridiculous. She said, “Mrs James of Sutton has one twice as long.” So the matter dropped.

  I’m reading the same few sentences over and over. I keep hearing Mum’s voice, Mrs James of Sutton has one twice as long. When she was being Carrie, Mum put on this little funny fluttery voice that made me giggle. When she was being Mr Pooter, it was lower and a bit nerdy, and when she was being Lupin, Mr Pooter’s son, it was all bold and brash.

  Maybe it would be better to find a book that me and Mum have never read together. Except that I can’t, because they’re all up in the loft. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

  I close Diary of a Nobody. I leave the bookmark in there, in case one day I go back to it. There’s some writing at the front; I’ve read it loads of times. It says, To Sue, with all my love, Andi. I hope you find this little book as funny and delightful as I do! I once asked Mum who Andi was. She said, “Someone from my youth.” But she didn’t tell me who and I never thought to ask again. I wish I had! Now I’ll never know. I bet it was a boyfriend she used to have before she met the man that became my dad. I can’t help thinking it’s a pity she didn’t marry him. I’m sure he would have made her a lot happier. But then, of course, she wouldn’t have had me, she would have had someone totally different. That is quite scary; I would rather not think about it.

  I put Diary of a Nobody back on the shelf and pick up Blue Bunny, instead. Blue Bunny is old and tatty, and I know I am past the age for soft toys, but he has been with me ever since I can remember. I take him on to the bed and cuddle up with him and Mr Pooter. There’s a knock at the door and Holly comes in. She doesn’t wait to be invited. She thinks it’s enough just to knock.

  She says, “Dad wants to know if you’re going to come downstairs.”

  I say no, it’s all right, I’d rather stay up here with Mr Pooter.

  “I expect you could bring him down,” says Holly, “if you wanted. So long as he doesn’t get on the furniture. Or scrape things.”

  I say he doesn’t scrape things any more. “He’s too old for that.”

  “Seems like he’s too old for anything,” says Holly. “I think you ought to come down. Dad says it’s not good for you to be up here by yourself. He says you need company. He’s worried about you.”

  I ask her what he’s worried about, and she says it’s because I haven’t cried. “If I lost my mum I’d cry buckets! It’s only natural.”

  Natural for her; not for Ice Lolly. Mum would understand.

  “Why don’t you go and live with your dad, anyway?” She throws it at me, accusingly, like it’s my fault I’ve come here, cluttering up her nan’s bedroom. “Wouldn’t you rather live with your dad?”

  I explain that nobody knows where my dad is, and I wouldn’t want to live with him anyway. He made Mum so unhappy! He was horrid to her. It was when she was starting to get sick and she kept dropping things and breaking things and tripping over, and he used to yell at her and ask her why she had to be so clumsy.

  “There’s a girl in my class whose dad ran away,” says Holly. “She cried for days. Did you cry when yours went?”

  I don’t really remember, but I don’t believe I did. I think probably I was just relieved that he wasn’t there to upset Mum any more.

  “Didn’t you?” says Holly.

  I mutter that I might have done, but she’s giving me that look that says, you are just so weird. I place Blue Bunny between Mr Pooter’s paws. Holly hovers in the doorway.

  “Did you get your bag packed?” she says. “Cos Dad doesn’t like to be kept waiting in the morning.”

  I tell her that my bag is all ready.

  Holly says, “Good.” Then she says, “Mum’s hoping you’ll manage to find someone to make friends with. She says you can’t rely on Michael all the time. He’s a boy and he has friends of his own. She’s scared you might get clingy or embarrass him, carrying on about how you don’t believe in God and stuff.”

  I tell Holly that I won’t say another word.

  “Cos it’s not clever,” says Holly. “It doesn’t impress people. and it’s probably not believing in him that makes all these bad things happen.”

  I don’t ask her what bad things; I don’t want to know. I just want her to go away.

  Still she hovers. “So are you coming,” she says, “or not?”

  I shake my head and clutch at Blue Bunny.

  “You ought to put that thing in the washing machine,” says Holly. “Or get rid of it. It’s filthy!”

  Finally, she’s gone. I curl up again on the bed, stroking Mr Pooter with one hand and clutching Blue Bunny in the other. I’m not putting him in the washing machine! He might come to pieces. He’s very old. Almost as old as I am. I have this memory of a lady giving him to me. I don’t know who the lady was, but I remember I sat on her lap and she kissed me and hugged me. My dad was still there in those days, and after the lady had gone he and Mum had a fight. Dad shouted and Mum cried, and I got scared and hid behind the sofa. I remember that. I don’t know what they fought about, but I think maybe it was something to do with the lady. I never saw her again.

  I put Blue Bunny next to Mr Pooter and get them cuddling. Mr Pooter purrs, and crimps his paws. He likes Blue Bunny. Once, a few years ago, when Stevie wanted stuff she could sell to help the local animal charity, I told her she could have Blue Bunny. Mum was horrified. She said, “Lol, no! You can’t give Bunny away, he’s part of your past.” So were lots of other things, but she didn’t mind me giving them. She didn’t even mind giving the crystal vase that had
been one of her wedding presents. When I was little she always told me not to touch it because it was worth a lot of money. Then she went and gave it away. She said, “It’s only an object. Just a bit more clutter. I’d sooner it went to the animals.” But she wouldn’t let me give Blue Bunny!

  I’m glad, now. I think it’s important to have things from your past.

  There’s another knock at the door. Please not Holly back again.

  “Laurel?” It’s Auntie Ellen’s voice. “May I come in?”

  I wish I could say no, but of course I can’t. I make a mumbling sound, and the door opens.

  “Holly tells me your bag’s all packed and ready. Good girl!” Auntie Ellen comes over and sits on the edge of the bed. Mr Pooter immediately rolls on to his back, inviting a tummy rub, but she takes no notice. “Laurel,” she says, “I know it’s very difficult for you just at the moment. I know you’re probably not looking forward to tomorrow, having to start at a new school in the middle of term, but—”

  “It’s all right.” I sit up, very stiff and straight. “I won’t cling. And I won’t talk about God, I promise!”

  Auntie Ellen’s face turns slowly red. Not red because she’s angry, like in the restaurant, but more like red because I’ve given away a secret. Holly wasn’t supposed to have told me.

  “Now, look,” says Auntie Ellen, “I didn’t say that. It’s just that I’m worried about you. I’m worried that you may find it difficult to make friends. I don’t think you’re really used to having any, and some of the things you come out with…they don’t help.”

  It’s not clever. That’s what Holly said. But I don’t say them to be clever!

  Auntie Ellen straightens the duvet. “It’s a pity you’re not still at primary school. It’s easier there, and you’d be with Holly. Michael will look out for you, of course he will, but—”

  “I won’t embarrass him!”

  I get it out quickly, before she can say it herself. Now she’s redder than ever.

  “Well,” she says, “I’m sure you don’t mean to. It’s the way you’ve been brought up. Just you and your mum, and that old woman. Stella, Stevie, whatever her name was. You don’t seem…” She hesitates. I sit, looking at her. Waiting. “I don’t know!” Auntie Ellen waves a hand. “You don’t seem able to relate, somehow. There’s Holly going out of her way to make you welcome, helping you unpack, and everything…Michael taking all those books up to the loft for you. They’re doing their best! It’s not easy for them, either. If you could just come halfway to meet them—”